ALBA participated at Association of MBAs Global Conference for Deans and Directors in Prague

Association of MBAs’ 2015 Global Conference for Deans and MBA Directors was held in Prague in May 13 – 15 and attracted more than 190 delegates from 143 business schools in 40 countries. Among central topics for this year were online education and key global and regional trends in MBA demand.

Mrs. Antonina Kalkavoura, Director of ALBA’s Executive MBA represented our School and shared Lessons from Greece: Even in times of crisis there's always time and room for innovation. In fact innovation is the only solution.

The main purpose of the speech was to describe the innovative ways that ALBA applied during the difficult times of crisis, in order to maintain and increase the number of its students. It focused on the new strategic communication plan, which affected not only the marketing activities of the school, but also the content of its MBA Programs.
 
Some interesting facts that were driven from the Conference regarding Global trends in MBA education are the following: "There are clear signs of growing interest in online education (as much as 22% of prospective MBA students in the USA would consider an online MBA programme). Moreover, the phenomenon of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), recently backed by universities such as Harvard, Wharton and Stanford, has changed the nature of the discussion and given online education greater credibility and recognition.  Corporate employers, on the other hand, still remain skeptical about general management programmes online; only 15% of employers in the USA would consider them beneficial for prospective employees. This is in clear contrast to general attitudes employers have towards the MBA – 85% of large enterprises actively recruit MBA graduates. This is further reflected in their career success paths – 44% of business alumni who graduated before 1990 are at C-level or executive positions worldwide, while the percentage for those who graduated in 1990-2000 is 38%.

Among trends in MBA education is the growing quality of programmes in Asia. In the year 2000, 32 of the top 40 MBA programmes were in the USA, with the remaining eight in Europe. Currently, only 19 are in the USA, 13 in Europe and eight in Asia.

The new asset-free digital business models of Uber, AirBnb or Alibaba demonstrate the need for new types of MBA programmes with focus on data analytics, data driven marketing and greater development of soft skills. “Millennials“ or generation “Y” (those born between 1980-2000) also have specific preferences that need to be reflected in MBA programmes – such as (surprisingly) lower interest in online education (they want to have the classroom experience), more entrepreneurial attitudes (often going from school directly into start-ups) and different motivation drives (changing the world, rather than earning more).”